Bounce

This sh*t is ill.

Do The Test

As an avid reader of The 'Mania, I'm sure you're asking yourself, "Have I been reading a blog written by a man that injures himself this badly with no provocation?"

The answer is no. I was cut off by a motorist in New York City who raced around me to beat the same yellow light I was trying to beat. He sped past me then braked in front of me to make a right turn. I threw my fixed gear Bianchi Pista out from between my legs, tucked my shoulder to my chin and waited. The event that, as it turns out, didn't require much waiting at all resulted in 12 stitches over my left eye and who knows what sort of (THANK JESUS, INSURED) medical bills for the ambulance ride, ER visit, etc. I had to miss a gig I was set to play with Red Rooster, as well, which is a whole other can of bullsh*t.

People have asked, "Did (the driver) stop?" I have to remind them that, since I bailed in front of the car and never made contact, the driver likely had no idea of the person salad that laid in his wake. I can't blame him for not stopping.

HOWEVER - The driver is a douchebag of an innumerable value for sending me to the ground, and if this helps you to remember to look out your mirror before opening a door or giving a bicycle just an inch more room, then my wounds are well won.

And The Winner Is...

The pavement. I would have been intrepidly blogging my boy's cinching up of the Democratic nomination, but I opted instead for stitching up after taking a quick pit stop on the upper layers of Delancey and Allen.

I know that posting this pic is a somewhat risky move. The Paparazzi will swarm. I am jeopardizing my ability to leave a restaurant or walk a child in a stroller in peace. 

Maybe when I can open both of my eyes the attention will fade. 

City of Brotherly Love

Gotta post this. Sean Bell was shot in an event that had NYPD officers fire over 50 shots on unarmed men. Unarmed men whom they believed to be armed and giving them EVERY SINGLE LAST BENEFIT OF EVERY POSSIBLE DOUBT - shots are being fired, they don't know where they're coming from (I don't know police protocol here) and when they don't stop, they KEEP firing. It's sad, but it doesn't seem malicious. This may show my naiveté re: NYPD extreme violence against citizens, but I can see it. 

This video? Either these officers are toast or the neighborhood I flyered for Barack in will burn a little. 

Yikes, folks. Watch it again. Seriously. This is ridiculous.

Ummmmm...

You've gotta try / see this:

http://www.nypost.com/spsections/hill_vs_obama/

Only the New York Post, right?

Haters

Excellent article from Philly.com about inherent racism amongst the Pennsylvania electorate.  (Hat tip: Ben Smith)

I don't link to it to decry it as out of the ordinary. The theme it touches on will be one that is repeated throughout the general election campaign: White liberals who don't believe that we, as a nation, are ready for a black president:

As I watched the Pennsylvania primary unfold I began to see something about Pennsylvania, and the north as a whole that was extremely disheartening. It is the belief held by many whites in Pennsylvania and New Jersey that America is not ready for a black president. To me, this reeks of racial bias and ignorance. 

A year ago, I was talking to a friend of mine at lunch who has lived in the south all his life. He mentioned to me that he thought the north was more racist than the south. His reasoning was that in the south, white and black folks have been forced to live together and work together for years now. It's nothing new anymore. Sure there are bigots out there, but most have had to confront their racial biases at some point or another. Basically, it's been forced out into the open...

He continued that in the north, people quickly moved out into the suburbs away from blacks in the city and basically have avoided the issue entirely. As a result, many have not had to confront their biases towards a particular race of people...We have had black mayors, governors, senators, representatives, and even Secretaries of State. Why is president "off limits"? When does a race of people become 'ready' for America? How is that judged exactly?

This sounds an awful lot like a reader's email I posted a portion of just last week. Here is another potion I didn't include in the original post. It refers to the reader's interpretatino of the intentions of the liberal establishment regarding black voters:

See, we think you're wonderful and we're delighted to let you folks be mayors and councilmen and delegates to our convention... And vote for us, because we gonna take care of you and give you more programs and entitlements!!!

Read the original post here.

These may be the Democrats that peel off as independents for John McCain in the general. That's fine. The rest of the party will coalesce without them, and much like Joe Lieberman, they'll be left in their boat with no oars looking over the precipice of change. 

BREAKING

Jesus...Hillary's out of money (the $10M is totally off) and a source close to the campaign says she'll be out by the end of the week. (Click the link for MSNBC video)

Effing Drudge, right?

Keepin' It Close

The inability of a well-oiled machine candidate to not run up debt like a Buffalo Bills fan, more than the most delectable cup of java ever, is way more likely to keep campaign offices open from 6:00AM to 2:00AM.

These Obama effers work hard. In Philly since yesterday. West Philly.

6-8 points. You heard it here first.

The Cracker Barrel

A reader writes:

"If (Clinton's "bitter" strategy) works, it will just be more evidence of the unsettling plantation mentality of the mainstream Democratic Party...

...'We gonna take care of you and give you more programs and entitlements and empowerments and don't that make you feel good!'

Then quietly slipping away, down to the general store, sitting by the cracker barrel: 'You know, we do take care of them. And we do think they are coming along just fine. But do you think the rest of the country feels that way? I dunno. Better be careful. Don't want to step over the edge here.'

...I grew up in a world of paternalistic racism and separation. Open and aboveboard. I still know people whose attitudes haven't changed from those days. They accept the circumstances of surface equality, even if they probably don't believe it. But they're honest. It's worse when racism is more subtle, insidious, practiced with skill, and equally demeaning."

I recently asked a friend of mine who works in the Bronx as a social worker what it would be like for the women she works for, and their children, to see Barack Obama elected. She just kind of stared at me and bared a faint smile.

Makin' 'Nit

E. Bad settin' you straight:

Message Discipline

"I think those comments are elitist...I think it's a fundamental contradiction of what I believe America is all about..."

"The characterization of people in a way that really seemed to be elitist and out of touch is really something that we have to overcome..."

Guess who said what?

Honest Obe

Hipster Pictures

One of the reasons I moved to New York with my sights set on Brooklyn was the photography in Vice Magazine. I wanted to see if these people really existed.

It turns out they kind-of do. It's as if a tall and skinny casting bat signal was shone over Metropolitan Avenue by an aging fashion queen. His plan - dress the girls in old clothes and boots that he had been collecting at estate sales and storing in his attic. For the boys - tight shirts and pants, with the latter required to always be falling down.

His plan worked, and so did mine. Knee deep in tattoos and irony, I'm the ultimate unmustached square jogging past you on your way in to Pete's Candy Store.

I haven't read Vice in months (and heard a rumor that it had been sold to a large publishing house completely unsubstantiated source - Anton von Hornsbinoff), likely because I only need walk out my front door and take two rights for a fresh DYI Do & Don'ts pallette. One of my favorite photographers from Vice, Ryan McGinley, is showing a gaggle of naked hipster pictures in SoHo / Chinatown. I will be going to compare notes.

Check it out: http://www.teamgal.com/exhibitions/131

Operator, Can You Help Me?

God bless you if he/she selected your sorry ass to be on the other end of the telephone from me if you're in customer service.

What? I didn't pay Virginia state taxes for half the decade? Sounds like your fault for sending the reminders to the wrong address. Sound like a ridiculous statement bordering on being a non sequitor? It is. But when you start talking to the voice, everything changes.

The voice hates you. The voice sat down at its desk at 8:55, donned the headset and looked down to see 13 calls in queue. 13 angry motherf*ckers who have spent some of the first minutes of their day on hold.

At 8:58 the voice remembers the email she got at 4:54 yesterday saying that call volume would be high today because (insert company / organization here) was about to begin "Operation FacePoop", a reference to a new billing system that works by automatically deducting whatever it wants from your checking account every three minutes. The voice takes a deep breath, sighs, and wades in. For the next 8 hours. With a 1/2 hour lunch.

May I finish? It is incredibly important to get the voice to answer your questions. The voice will try to admonish you (for say, going on Phish tour and not filing a tax return) talk down at you or use your surname (Mr. Ofallwookies...Mr. Ofallwookies) in order to avoid a question it it has no answer to. You must remember that the voice works for you, dear reader, and if it isn't in the mood to answer your questions, well...

I'm going to have to ask to speak to your supervisor. The voice is not the supervisor. Ever. If the voice is smart, it transfers you to another voice, avoiding a possible reprimand. If you think this might be happening to you, go for the gold, tiger. The operating number. Asking for this is a surefire way to illicit, sometimes audibly, an suddenly clamped butthole from the end of the line. Today I was told that I wouldn't need it. But I just. Couldn't. Live. Without it.

"Mr. Offallwookies? Thank you for holding, sir. My supervisor is on her way."

Demand Satisfaction. Who does #1 work for? The supervisor is the granter of refunds, the gatekeeper of free shipping. Without going into explicit detail, explain why the voice was unhelpful, remembering that the voice and the supervisor may share hotdogs at the races. Calmly explain what you came for. When the supervisor doesn't grant your wish, see above and write a letter.

But you're not really gonna do that, are you?

Are you?

Oh yeah - don't curse. They can can you for that

New Boyfriend Store

I used to warn an ex-girlfriend that, believe it or not, it could be worse. 

I even had a name for "it". "It" was called "The New Boyfriend Store". (Yours truly had come at one of those red tag sale event deals, where she doesn't even remember how much she saved. But it was alot.)

Trying to glean some focus from the disappearing afternoon and thinking of her, I happened upon an ad from said retailer and wanted to share it with you: http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/bar/632467761.html

She's Got One More Days Left

"She said late last week that they would be out within a week and so you can count on that." -Howard Wolfson, HRC's Communications Director

Enjoy a coffee and a cigarette with that post-5:00PM dump tomorrow afternoon.

Recess This

I was too young to remember the last US recession. My memory serves that it started after Gulf War I and lasted until the day NAFTA took effect. From then until now, not including the 2001-2002 almost-meltdown of Enron and WTC, was the everlasting horizon of jobs just for knowing what a mouse was and clever Superbowl ads (here and here)

According to statistics from the Labor Bureau for US citizens over the age of 25, the following has occurred over the last decade:

The highest rates of unemployment and the lowest wages are shared by those with no high school degree. It is no great surprise that these statistics would be associated those who attained the least education. Many factors associated with low educational attainment - poorly performing schools, low family income - are likely better indicators of future earnings and help us understand that lack of education is certainly not the same thing as lack of intelligence, but the correlation is what it is.

Troubling, too, is that even though unemployment for this segment is around its 1998 level, during the summer of 2003 it was as high as 9.4% and averaged 8.81% from May '03-May '04. Consider then that 13.6% of the United States population doesn't have a diploma. The census estimates the population of the US that was at least 25 years old on July 1, 2006 at 201,504,955 people. Of those folks, according to the labor department 1,945,731 were without jobs.

Even scarier is at the same time, those 25.5 million undereducated Americans that were employed on 7/1/06 were making an average of $12,828 a year. Scarier still - that figure is only ~$300 more (a year!!!) than the numbers in 1998, and now, the kicker: $700 LESS than they were in July of last year!!!

For all other groups - diploma, diploma & some college, college degree - the news is, if only slightly, better. Unemployment for each of these groups has only broken 5% for those with no college. It peaked at 5.7% in the dreaded summer of 2003, hit a valley at 4.1% in '06 and is slowly on the rise today. Said grouping's real income has risen less than $1,000 from January of '98 to the present. This could be a factor of strong union representation amongst the group, whose members enjoy good benefits and relative security in exchange for low salary.

For those who, like the author, found early greatness superseding higher educational goals but only long enough to make going back difficult or prohibitive, things are trending upwards, but at a terribly steep angle. While wages have risen around 15% in the last 10 years, the group started way below the no college crowd ($31K to $37.5K) and are making far less today ($36.5K) than those who finished ($45.5K) AND those who bucked it altogether ($38K).

So what does this all mean? These are numbers from the supposed "good years". People already seem spooked about not getting all they thought they would a couple years back from their homes, gas prices, military robots...

These were just some numbers I wanted to wrap my head around before really diving in to the more personal aspects of impending shortage.

More to come this week, but in the meantime: the aforementioned destroyed of everything (Hat Tip: Yglesias)

HILLARY CLINTON KEEPS PROMISE, RELEASES TAX RETURNS!!!

Happy April Fools, reader(s).

Bowl-Obama UPDATE

37. 

Yikes. 

The Dickster

My most sincere hope for the future:

Upon your first moments in the afterlife you will find yourself amongst people who's favorite topic of conversation on Earth was the weather, who all drive late model American cars with bench front seats and who were raised during the era when white Americans forgot how to dance. 

You'll get out of that LeSabre in front of your new home. Walking towards it, you peek inside - Televisions. Huge televisions whose screens will reserve the majority of available horizontal space in each room. And on every screen there will be basketball. 

You will arrive at the door, drop your keys, bend over, pick them up, drop them again, bend at the knees this time, return and open the door. Inside, your butler will approach you with a Fresca and the magical remote with only three buttons. You will reciprocate with a hug that even makes you uncomfortable, pull away and head for the sofa, which will feel just like a lightly padded folding chair and will have a desk in front of it for you to slap and knock your Fresca on the floor.  On the desk will be placed a set of headphones with a microphone for you to yell into. 

You'll don the headset. Sit. Making yourself comfortable, you'll detect your ears starting to burn as you'll look up at the largest screens you've ever seen, and they'll all be playing your favorite commercials (It's DiGiornos!! McDonald's!!) and as the first game breaks from commercial you'll see a familiar face, but you won't recognize his uniform. As you turn your head from this game to the next, the same will occur, another known face and unknown jersey. On every TV this will happen, when the referees will blow their whistles and play begins. The sofa feels as it could swallow you whole. After a minute or so your still sharp basketball mind begins to search the games for a single well placed screen. Nothing. Your mind races. Defense. From some kid just trying to make a name for himself, baby. Your microphone must be turned off. Bad jumper follows more isolation play. A stat shows one team shooting 3-12 for the charity stripe... 

Suddenly there are no more commercials. You call for the butler but can't even hear the sound your voice makes. You do hear the lock of the door thrown while you're finally beginning to smell the singe the headphones are placing on your scalp. Your favorite players are on the bench. No JJs. No Trejans. Their eyes burn from the end of the bench. "You put us here, Dick" People with crazy names like Kobe and LeBron who you've never seen miss wide open jump shots over lazy and don't listen to their coaches. 

You look at the clock: ∞ 

Bowl-Obama

Short of seeing Pete Townshend playing Big Buck Hunter in the background of this picture, I don't think it's possible to view an image that's captured my worldview as totally as this one.

Hosting Is Effed Right Now, Sorry

And Now...The End Is Near

A Good Sign

This is telling, no?

"JOIN US" is all under my boy. Signs for him are bright and say "Change" while her's are darker and only have her name legible. I've got an application open for my iPhone, but also a folder titled "For Jesus". But most telling - THERE'S TWO F*CKING PICTURES.

STILL.

This is where this ridiculous race rests today: It's over. I wanna jump on top of the pile, too.

Which superdelegate do you think is sitting in at the Superdelegate Club right now, sipping cognac and saying to him/herself, "You know, I just don't think that Barack fella can get elected. I mean, c'mon! He's going up against a 71 year old with a palsy who had half of his face removed a year or so back, claps like a seal and can't get in to a taxi without feeling sharp pains underneath his fingernails. Oh, and who also wants to keep this war going until the robots take over. What we need to beat him back is the most divisive figure in national politics today. A lady that will have every single man in this country who wears a mustache with unironic pride buying bumper stickers that say (LITERALLY!!!) F*CK HILLARY with their rebate checks." - Ed Rendell 3.24.08, speaking to the Philedelphia Inquirer

Hillary has finally been caught in the web of no real foreign policy experience after all, and best of all she's starting to lie about it. Badly.


This is, as David Brooks put it today's NYT, "the audacity of hopelessness."

This. Is. Sportscenter.

Welcome to Ferraro's!

Hello, my friend, and welcome to Ferraro's! 

I am Gino. I own this place. Pretty nice, huh?

Yes, I was a member of Congress from 1978 to 1986. Served on the finance committee for 6 of those. 

Sadly, I was passed up by Mondale for the VP nod. Why? I don't know. Something about name. 

Oh well. Come in!

No, Really

"If Jesse Jackson were not black, he wouldn't be in the race."
- Geraldine Ferraro, April 15, 1988 Washington Post

This quote has been floating around the 'sphere this evening, but I feel obliged to send a hat tip to Ben Smith, who acted as verifying agent. 

Dude

The problem is not that the Governor allegedly likes to get wrist-deep in the occasional pro. Problem is, by doing so, he violates our trust.

We don't have to go back through his previous statements looking for lies. That's Bill Clinton's deal. When made untrue and super-quailfied statements while under oath, he opened the door to having every statement he had ever made whilst in office scrutinized. But then there was, thusly, a finite amount of scrutinizable material.

Things with Spitz are much worse. Since he did something that we trusted him not to do, even though we never explicitly told him not to do it, without telling us, we can now look back at his tenure in public office and fill in all the gaps with hookers. Where The Spitzter's schedule used to look like this:

GOVERNOR'S SCHEDULE
07/13/07

9:00AM - Breakfast with community leaders in at Kingston County Courthouse.

11:00AM - Travel back to Albany

one can now reasonably assume it to actually have been this:

9:00AM - Breakfast with community leaders in at Kingston County Courthouse.
9:43-10:58AM - Tawdry sex in exchange for money.
11:00AM - Travel back to Albany

It also is bad for dudes all over because our special lady friends see his wife and think about every time we've been suddenly broke, went on a business trip without explaining every little detail of it, or paid 6 diamond girls to ride it for money.

Thanks, Elliot. You're a real asshole.

In Defense of Power

If Obama is my new bicycle, then Samantha Power is my new...wait...she quit.

Must type faster.

UPDATE: FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK

No traction on "Ken Starr", now.

Even less foreign policy "experience" and ability to draw the distinctions of "experience": "Hey, you smelly hair-to-your-navel c*nt: FP experience includes understanding humanitarian crises in Africa and around the world, not simply one's willingness to bomb those darker than you, which, of course, in my case, lends itself to a much more peaceful foreign policy. Nah mean?"

F*ck.

Out of The Cave

I can't stand it anymore.

Enter the post-Sean Taylor-mourning era of The 'Mania with me, won't you?

Her

The notion that Hillary Clinton is more 'experienced' than her opponent is stupid.

Luckily for her campaign, thirty years of cutbacks in non-lottery-subsidized education has left many people in America stupid.

The Atlantic Monthly's James Fallows notes the experience of a recent incumbent president who lost an election because of it (and Ross Perot):

"I mean, it's almost incredible to think about, when you consider what constitutes an 'experience' edge in this election. The elder George Bush, by the time he ran for re-election, had been president for four years; vice president for eight; ambassador to the UN for two years; de facto ambassador to China for two; Congressman for four; director of the CIA for one year; plus former head of the Republican National Comittee, decorated combat pilot, and commander in chief during one brief hot war and the end of the prolonged Cold War. Moreover, in his '3 a.m. moments of real crisis, he had used his experience to make sane decisions:handling the collapse of the Soviet empire, standing up against Saddam Hussein, putting together a wartime coalition so broad and supportive that the United States may have actually made money on the Gulf War, then having the sense not to occupy Iraq. Not bad!

Obama has got to go back to his bread and butter:

• She has experience.
• Totally.
• But, didn't she help f*ck everything up?
• Well, at least she admits she it and has learned from it, right?
• No?
• Oh.

Dude should be doing 6-slide Powerpoint presentations just like this.